Just dropped an eBook/PDF of “Money by Vile Means.” Nowhere else will you get: - What Bitcoin actually is (why it's corrupted) - Debunked myths of decentralization - Hidden stablecoin endgame = shadow central banking If you're tired of the hype, grab it now. (link below)

“[OpenAI] might turn out to be the WeWork of AI” - @GaryMarcus

“the dissaving driven economy”

Just finished this and surprised to learn that Fukuyama has been building his own computers and coding his own software for decades

One of the more interesting stablecoin papers of the year

Interesting book

New pod in your feed this morning! Dan sat down with @RealJimChanos and @GaryMarcus to talk all things AI, data center financing, agentic systems, animal spirits and p(doom) scenarios 🎙️🤖 YouTube: piped.video/g9KdLg9sTX4 Apple: apple.co/4xFzz5v Spotify: tinyurl.com/yfcsh2c8

Can a productivity boom push down inflation? A new analysis examines this question using historical industry-level data bit.ly/4hceGKh

As the neoliberal era gives way to the multipolar era, does the tech platform economic model still hold up? Can tech platforms' need to globalize for growth still operate in a context of more nationalist protectionism?

SEC staff say a crypto project announcing a token buyback is not, on its own, promising the kind of managerial effort that makes a token a security, as long as the network already works. Buybacks pitched as yield on an unfinished network could still cross the line. unchainedcrypto.com/sec-staf…

“Stochastic parrot”

Interesting

Turns out young people consider data centers “mostly bad” more than old people.

Are US Treasuries now a better investment than rental property? protos.com/are-us-treasuries…

New Irish stats on data center water use correspond to my report’s findings. “This is equivalent to the total direct water consumption of some 340,600 homes or 18.5 per cent of occupied dwellings in the State, based on 2022 Census figures.”

If you are in the Irish government and thinking through data center policy, my report is a must read

AI's concentration risk: "Top 10% of customers account for 99.5% of model-serving spend and 99% of neocloud spend, leaving the bottom 90% of firms with 0.5% and 1%...The bottom line is that adoption is broadening while the spending base is not, and AI infrastructure will keep depending on a small set of heavy spenders until the tail scales up." This is certainly evidence of the technology's immaturity—over time the spending base will expand as more companies figure out how to effectively integrate AI to unlock operational value. However, it's also evidence that adoption challenges are far more persistent than the model builders anticipated. I quoted Sam Altman on this in my recent report on "The AI Trade" (sageroadresearch.com/product…): "The economy just has so much inertia. People just keep doing the same things. They keep buying from the same company. They keep using their tools in the same way. I think that’s actually a positive in many ways. It’s going to make this big transition in front of us go smoother and slower. But I think it means we’ve all been too ambitious on timelines." It's not just about inertia. AI is still plagued by its weaknesses, from hallucination to agentic workflows breaking down midstream. But to the inertia point, AI puts unprecedented transformational demands on enterprises. As I warned in my December report on "GenAI & Productivity" (sageroadresearch.com/product…): "As much attention was paid to the headline 95% failure estimate by MIT researchers, their explanation for that failure rate was likely a more important long-term consideration in understanding when and how companies will realize productivity gains from genAI. To quote the researchers: “The dominant barrier to crossing the GenAI Divide is not integration or budget, it is organizational design.” McKinsey is delivering a similar message: “Building a business for the agentic age will require a fundamental rewiring of how the business operates, innovates, and protects sources of value creation.” Deloitte is saying much the same: “This is not about adding another tool; it’s about fundamentally rethinking how work gets done from the top down.” It's difficult to look at modern history and identify an enabling technology that demanded the depth and speed of organizational transformation being suggested for genAI today." For all of AI's capabilities, there is no path to ~$2.5t in annual AI revenue (the estimatdd amount required to offset CAPEX) unless the vast majority of enterprises become relative "heavy spenders" on a manageable timeline. Instead, the tail is elongating slowly while evidence mounts that today's "heavy spenders" are pulling back their spending. According to Ramp data, the top 1% of spenders, the cohort that drives ~80% of OpenAI and Anthropic’s enterprise revenue, cut per-employee spend by nearly 10% in August. Chart link: apollo.com/wealth/insights-n…

Interesting

Largest stablecoin provider btw

Did you know that Google’s proxies sued journalists for 13 months to prevent their data centers’ water usag being reported. They lost and were forced to reveal their own stats for the first time ever. Turns out they made up 29% of all 2021 city water use. Then in 2025: 40%.